Remote work unwind: Goldman spearheads Wall St return to office

Beginning Monday, Wall Street banking titan Goldman Sachs is requiring nearly all of its employees in New York to report to their desks.

It’s a short stroll from Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s global headquarters to Citigroup Inc.’s, but when it comes to reopening after the pandemic, the two Manhattan towers might as well be thousands of miles apart. Starting this morning, Goldman Sachs is requiring almost all employees at its perch over the Hudson River to report to their desks, marking one of Wall Street’s most ambitious returns to the workplace since Covid-19 besieged the city more than a year ago. Meanwhile, Citigroup won’t recall more of its staff to its mostly empty Tribeca tower in downtown Manhattan until July. Even then, the firm has told most workers that they can adopt a so-called hybrid schedule between home and the office longer term. Such divergences are popping up across Manhattan’s mighty financial industry, creating pockets of optimism within the city’s economy, but widespread anxiety inside workplaces. Bosses worry their teams will be less competitive if members are slow to come back. Parents fret about losing remote-work flexibility, but also that young, single colleagues and competitors may rush back sooner and soak up face time with executives or clients.